Everyone Got to Move On. I Was Left With the Damage.

The part nobody warns you about isn’t the betrayal itself.

It’s what happens after.

Your life blows up and somehow everyone else’s doesn’t.
Their calendars stay full.
Their routines stay intact.
Their problems stay manageable.

And you’re standing there thinking, How the fuck is this real.

I didn’t just lose a job.
I lost stability. Momentum. Safety. Time.

I didn’t just have a bad therapist.
I was blackmailed by someone who had five years of my psychological blueprint. Someone who knew exactly where to press.

That’s not a “rough season.”
That’s a collapse.

And still, everyone else got to move on.

They checked in once. Maybe twice.
“Let me know if you need anything.”

Then nothing.

They went back to work.
Back to dinner plans.
Back to normal.

Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out how to exist inside a life that no longer made sense.

That’s the part that fucks you up.
Not the event.
The aftermath you’re forced to carry alone.

When your life stops but theirs doesn’t

There’s something disorienting about watching people adjust faster than you can.

People who weren’t harmed.
People who weren’t exposed.
People who didn’t lose their footing.

They tell themselves stories that make the distance feel reasonable.

“He’ll be fine.”
“He’s strong.”
“He always figures it out.”

Those words sound complimentary.
They’re not.

They’re exits.

Resilience becomes the excuse.
If you’re resilient, you must not need help.
If you’re capable, you must not be suffering that badly.

So people keep taking from you.

Your insight.
Your humor.
Your steadiness.
Your ability to show up even when you’re not okay.

But the moment you can’t perform strength on command?

They’re gone.

Not out of cruelty.
Out of discomfort.

The rage nobody talks about

There’s a specific anger that comes from being frozen while everyone else keeps advancing.

Watching people who failed you get promoted.
Watching professionals who harmed you keep practicing.
Watching institutions close ranks and call it procedure.

I have skills I can’t use yet.
Licenses sitting idle.
Capacity locked behind consequences I didn’t choose.

That kind of forced pause messes with your sense of worth.

You start to feel useless even when you know you’re not.
Behind even when you were pushed.

It’s maddening.

The quiet grief of being left

What hurt most wasn’t even the loss.

It was realizing how few people knew how to stay.

They didn’t know what to say.
They didn’t know how to help.
They didn’t know how to sit with something that didn’t resolve quickly or neatly.

So they drifted.

And eventually you understand something brutal:

A lot of support is conditional on you remaining easy to be around.

What I learned the hard way

People confuse distance with neutrality.
They confuse silence with kindness.
They confuse “moving on” with maturity.

But there is nothing mature about leaving someone alone with the aftermath of abuse, betrayal, or institutional harm because it makes you uncomfortable.

That’s not growth.
That’s avoidance.

The truth nobody wants to say out loud

Most people don’t disappear because they don’t care.

They disappear because your situation threatens their sense of safety.

If it happened to you, it could happen to them.

And that thought is unbearable.

So they minimize.
They rationalize.
They move on.

I didn’t get to move on

I didn’t get closure.
I didn’t get a soft landing.
I didn’t get collective acknowledgment.

I had to rebuild my nervous system, my career, my sense of trust, and my identity while the world pretended nothing happened.

That changes you.

You trust slower.
You listen more carefully.
You stop being impressed by words.

You start paying attention to who shows up when there’s nothing in it for them.

A line I won’t cross anymore

I won’t confuse familiarity with safety again.
I won’t perform strength to make other people comfortable.
I won’t pretend something didn’t hurt just to keep the peace.

If that makes me colder, fine.

It’s not bitterness.
It’s discernment.

If this hit you

If your life stalled while everyone else’s kept moving, you’re not weak for still being angry.

You’re not broken for not being “over it.”

Some injuries don’t heal on other people’s timelines.

And if you’re rebuilding quietly while the world acts like nothing happened, that doesn’t mean you’re behind.

It means you’re telling the truth.

—Cody

Kill The Silence